Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,170

you awake.” He leaned over and kissed me, soft as a whisper, on my cheek. Then, just as he seemed about to pull back, he plunged himself against me. I was muffled in my father’s sweaty smell and the wooly scratch of his pullover. As he held me, I felt jerky sobs move through his chest.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said when he finally pulled back.

“Sorry?” He was red-eyed, ragged, and rumpled. His pullover was stretched out and lopsided. The long strands of his hair hung loose, while his bald patch shone like a pale polished apple under the glaring hospital lights.

“I didn’t mean to—” I felt my own tears rise. I was no longer a blank mind registering nothing. Regret and sadness and aching guilt flooded through me.

“I know, love,” my father said. “I know. But, Jesse, love, I thought we’d lost you. Please,” he said, his eyes big watery saucers, “don’t ever do anything like that again.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

“Good. Because if you did I know I’d never forgive myself. I’d know it was because I let you down. And you have to realize, Jesse, that though I might not show it sometimes, I … well, I love you, Jesse, I really do.”

For the first time since I’d found myself in that hospital bed, I filled my lungs with a long, deep breath. Though the air was thick and stale and tasted of bleached sheets and disinfectant, I was glad to pull it into me all the same.

My father took the seat next to Grandma, who was knitting again.

“Where’s Mum?” I asked. It was the question that had been on my mind ever since I’d first woken.

My father eyed Grandma. She returned his look, raising her almost invisible eyebrows, then gave a subtle nod.

“Well …” My father brushed his palms over his thighs, hard, as if he were trying to smooth the map of creases out of his trousers or to wipe something sticky from his hands. “That’s why I couldn’t stay here with you, love. That’s why your Grandma’s been here. I’ve … Well, your mum had to go back to Delapole, Jesse.”

“She didn’t …? She didn’t try to …?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. I knew if she had tried to kill herself again, then I had propelled her to it. I was the one who had wished her dead.

My father shook his head. “No, love. She didn’t do anything like that. It’s just … Well, Jesse, love, your mum has an illness. There’s something wrong inside her head. She has to get treated by the doctors. The way they might treat someone who’s got a bad heart or a broken leg. So she’s going to stay there, in the hospital, for quite a while.”

“Will she be cured when she comes home, then?” I asked. I felt myself clinging to a thread of hope. A lifeline thrown to someone drowning.

Grandma dropped her knitting into her lap and rested her hand on my wrist. “Your mum has the kind of illness that they can’t really cure, darling. Not now, not yet. But they think they can help her, give her medicines that will make her a lot better, able to cope more easily with life.” She leaned closer to me, holding me steady in her pale blue eyes. “She wasn’t always like this, you know, darling. When she was much younger, she was just a normal lass. She might have been a little more moody than Ted or Mabel, but most of the time she was like anyone else. So you have to understand, love, that the person she is right now, it’s not really Evelyn. It’s like a storm that happens inside her head. It’s like the weather. There’s nothing that you can do or say to stop it. And there’s no point in trying. You’re just a lass—a bairn, really. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’ve got other things you need to think about.”

I lay silent, letting these words sink into me. After a few moments, I tilted my head toward my father. “Is Malcolm all right?” I asked.

“He’s fine,” my father said.

Then I asked him how it had happened, how it was that while Malcolm’s caravan had been pulled down the cliff side, Malcolm was still alive. My father explained that, unlike my family, Malcolm’s had been regularly checking the weather forecast. When Malcolm’s father heard there was such a big storm coming in, he’d moved their caravan far